Dr. Abigail Langston
Assistant Professor and Member, Environmental Science Program Advisory Board
Dr. Langston is serving as Interim Graduate Program Director during the Fall 2025 semester.
1003 Seaton Hall
785-532-6727
alangston@k-state.edu
Ph.D., 2014, University of Colorado
I study how rivers shape bedrock landscapes over timescales ranging from hours to thousands of years. My research aims to understand how past (and future) climate regimes affect fluvial systems. My project on the Buffalo River, Arkansas is focused on investigating how wide bedrock valleys are formed with a combination of field work, the development of numerical models, and flume experiments. My research project on Kings Creek in the Flint Hills of Kansas aims to distinguish between natural variability in stream aggradation/incision and anthropogenic drivers of river change using GIS mapping and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of terrace surfaces.
- Kwang JS, Langston Abigail L., Parker G. 2021. The role of lateral erosion in the evolution of nondendritic drainage networks to dendricity and the persistence of dynamic networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118: 1–6. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2015770118
- Marcotte AL, Neudorf CM, Langston Abigail L. 2021. Lateral bedrock erosion and valley formation in a heterogeneously layered landscape, Northeast Kansas. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms: 1–16. DOI: 10.1002/esp.5172
- Langston, Abigail L., Temme, A.J.A.M., 2019. Impacts of lithologically-controlled erosion mechanisms on downstream bedrock valley widening. Geophysical Research Letters, v. 46, p.12,056-12,064. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085164
- Langston, Abigail L., Temme, A.J.A.M., 2019. Bedrock erosion and changes in bed sediment lithology in response to an extreme flood event: The 2013 Colorado Front Range flood. Geomorphology, v. 328, p.1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2018.11.015
- Langston, Abigail L., Tucker, G.E., 2018. Developing and exploring a theory for the lateral erosion of bedrock channels for use in landscape evolution models. Earth Surface Dynamics, v. 5, p.1-27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-6-1-2018
- GROW (Girls Researching Our World) Workshop Leader, Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering, Kansas State University (KAWSE)
- Member, Environmental Science Program Advisory Board
Abigail Langston is originally from Ozarks of northwest Arkansas. She received a Master’s degree from the University of Florida in 2009 with a focus on surface water and groundwater hydrology. The next stop was the Colorado Front Range where she developed a passion for pondering geomorphic processes while hiking, kayaking, and skiing. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado in 2014. Her PhD research focused on hillslope weathering and sediment production, sediment transport in stream channels, and developing numerical models of strath terrace formation and lateral bedrock erosion. Dr. Langston then spent a year as a visiting scientist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands before joining K-State in 2016.
Her recent research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and focuses on processes and controls on lateral bedrock erosion and mechanisms of wide bedrock valley development in the French Alps, the Ozarks Plateau, and the Flint Hills.
In addition to research, Dr. Langston enjoys teaching undergrad and graduate students how the natural world around them functions and mentoring students in her active and growing research group.